w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a... more w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m
Courts (iCourts). ‡ We are very grateful to Ioannis Panagis and Troels Kjeldbjerg Jessen, without... more Courts (iCourts). ‡ We are very grateful to Ioannis Panagis and Troels Kjeldbjerg Jessen, without whose competent assistance this article would not have been written. Thanks are also due to Amanda Potts who commented on and checked the early results of the corpus linguistic pilot study. Furthermore, we are grateful to the editors at the European Journal of Legal Studies, two anonymous reviewers for highly useful and probing comments, which have all helped improve this article, researchers at iCourts, members of the NoLesLaw network, and others with whom we have had enlightening discussions on the project throughout its development.
The chapter examines the role that translation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights... more The chapter examines the role that translation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has played in the dialogue between the Member States of the Council of Europe and the Court over time. The judgments of the ECtHR are produced in the two official languages, English and French, only, and translation into other languages was not an issue until the beginning of the Interlaken reform process in the early 2000s. It was introduced into the reform discourse under the heading of Member States’ knowledge and understanding of the Court’s case law. The chapter traces the development of translation arguments in the reform discourse and argues that considerations regarding translation into the national languages of the Member States indicate the institutional balance that exists at any given time in the interface between the national and European levels of the European human rights system.
The article explores the unique character of international commercial arbitration as a globalized... more The article explores the unique character of international commercial arbitration as a globalized phenomenon, where universalizing and harmonizing effects have largely been achieved by private means and spontaneous expansion, outside the States' direct intervention and control. The evolution of arbitration in recent decades from an alternative to the core mechanism of deciding cross-border commercial controversies is considered. Privatization of this area of dispute resolution is examined in the context of its growing autonomization, marked-as observed by Emmanuel Gaillard-by notable changes in its theoretical representations and narratives. This specific conceptual, institutional, and procedural framework of commercial arbitration reflects the demands of decision-making exercised in a legally, linguistically, and culturally diversified environment. Interpretation and application of law in arbitral cases requires skillful navigation between the rules of domestic, international and transnational origin, performed not only on the level of substantive norms, but also on those involving conflict of laws and procedure. As a consequence, comparative analysis plays a critical and complex role in arbitral decision-making, reaching beyond the mere demands of rendition of relevant provisions, and has been defined sensu largo as a 'comparative mindset', characteristic to international commercial arbitration. The article examines this phenomenon and its mechanics, challenges for legal professions and the effect of transnationalization of relevant domestic rules. It also explains the role of comparative analysis as an important instrument, used strategically in the processes of autonomization of commercial arbitration.
w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a... more w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m w w w .a s h g a te .c o m
Courts (iCourts). ‡ We are very grateful to Ioannis Panagis and Troels Kjeldbjerg Jessen, without... more Courts (iCourts). ‡ We are very grateful to Ioannis Panagis and Troels Kjeldbjerg Jessen, without whose competent assistance this article would not have been written. Thanks are also due to Amanda Potts who commented on and checked the early results of the corpus linguistic pilot study. Furthermore, we are grateful to the editors at the European Journal of Legal Studies, two anonymous reviewers for highly useful and probing comments, which have all helped improve this article, researchers at iCourts, members of the NoLesLaw network, and others with whom we have had enlightening discussions on the project throughout its development.
The chapter examines the role that translation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights... more The chapter examines the role that translation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has played in the dialogue between the Member States of the Council of Europe and the Court over time. The judgments of the ECtHR are produced in the two official languages, English and French, only, and translation into other languages was not an issue until the beginning of the Interlaken reform process in the early 2000s. It was introduced into the reform discourse under the heading of Member States’ knowledge and understanding of the Court’s case law. The chapter traces the development of translation arguments in the reform discourse and argues that considerations regarding translation into the national languages of the Member States indicate the institutional balance that exists at any given time in the interface between the national and European levels of the European human rights system.
The article explores the unique character of international commercial arbitration as a globalized... more The article explores the unique character of international commercial arbitration as a globalized phenomenon, where universalizing and harmonizing effects have largely been achieved by private means and spontaneous expansion, outside the States' direct intervention and control. The evolution of arbitration in recent decades from an alternative to the core mechanism of deciding cross-border commercial controversies is considered. Privatization of this area of dispute resolution is examined in the context of its growing autonomization, marked-as observed by Emmanuel Gaillard-by notable changes in its theoretical representations and narratives. This specific conceptual, institutional, and procedural framework of commercial arbitration reflects the demands of decision-making exercised in a legally, linguistically, and culturally diversified environment. Interpretation and application of law in arbitral cases requires skillful navigation between the rules of domestic, international and transnational origin, performed not only on the level of substantive norms, but also on those involving conflict of laws and procedure. As a consequence, comparative analysis plays a critical and complex role in arbitral decision-making, reaching beyond the mere demands of rendition of relevant provisions, and has been defined sensu largo as a 'comparative mindset', characteristic to international commercial arbitration. The article examines this phenomenon and its mechanics, challenges for legal professions and the effect of transnationalization of relevant domestic rules. It also explains the role of comparative analysis as an important instrument, used strategically in the processes of autonomization of commercial arbitration.
Legal language is an integral and foundational party of our social reality, but it is underrepres... more Legal language is an integral and foundational party of our social reality, but it is underrepresented in interdisciplinary, critical linguistic analyses. This is perhaps because language is more objective and formulaic than media texts, which can be more subjective and emotive (Kjær and Palsbro, 2008). In this paper, I demonstrate how a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of legal language can expose hidden traces of the underlying ideologies of text creators, while demonstrating how identity can be performed in legal texts.
Research is based on a half-million-word corpus of annual reports by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Key semantic domain analysis (Rayson, 2008) is used to identify the most salient themes in the legal texts compared to reference corpora of general written English, indicating areas for closer analysis.
Results show that legal language can be subjective and emotive. The semantic field of ‘crime’ is an expected key, but concordance analysis shows ideological skew in discursive construction of crimes/victims. For instance, ‘rape’/‘sexual assault’ co-occurs with female victims, whereas ‘torture’/‘outrages upon personal dignity’ co-occurs with males. Automated semantic categorization of collocates of Tribunal also indicate differing patterns in self-presentation. Early reports are dominated by discourse of progress/achievement while later reports are concerned with reputation/global perception.
Critical analyses of large bodies of legal language are relatively rare, but extremely culturally relevant. Legal descriptions of crimes/perpetrators/victims are powerful and sometimes subjectively skewed. Further, self-representation of powerful legal bodies and their conceptualizations of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in establishing/enforcing law will have lasting impacts on human rights.
The chapter provides and overview of types of collocations, multiword terms, and fixed phrases in... more The chapter provides and overview of types of collocations, multiword terms, and fixed phrases in legal texts as well as methods of describing them in the context of their use.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN Security Coun... more The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN Security Council in 1993 to prosecute persons responsible for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia during the Balkan wars. As the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremburg and Tokyo tribunals set up after WWII, the ICTY has attracted immense interest among legal scholars since its inception, but has failed to garner the same level of attention from researchers in other disciplines, notably linguistics. This represents a significant research gap, as the Tribunal’s public discourse (notably its case law and Annual Reports) can open up interesting avenues of analysis to researchers of law, language, and legal discourse alike. On its official website, the Tribunal claims that it has “irreversibly changed the landscape of international humanitarian law” and lists six specific achievements: “Holding leaders accountable; bringing justice to victims; giving victims a voice; establishing the facts; developing international law and strengthening the rule of the law”. While a number of legal scholars have studied and critiqued the level of ‘achievement’ actually attained by the Tribunal against these metrics and others, of interest to linguists is the ways in which this work might be conveyed discursively. In this paper, we demonstrate how methods from the linguistic field of corpus-based critical discourse analysis can be utilised to explore the discursive construction of such achievements in the language of the ICTY.
Uploads
Papers by Anne Lise Kjær
Research is based on a half-million-word corpus of annual reports by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Key semantic domain analysis (Rayson, 2008) is used to identify the most salient themes in the legal texts compared to reference corpora of general written English, indicating areas for closer analysis.
Results show that legal language can be subjective and emotive. The semantic field of ‘crime’ is an expected key, but concordance analysis shows ideological skew in discursive construction of crimes/victims. For instance, ‘rape’/‘sexual assault’ co-occurs with female victims, whereas ‘torture’/‘outrages upon personal dignity’ co-occurs with males. Automated semantic categorization of collocates of Tribunal also indicate differing patterns in self-presentation. Early reports are dominated by discourse of progress/achievement while later reports are concerned with reputation/global perception.
Critical analyses of large bodies of legal language are relatively rare, but extremely culturally relevant. Legal descriptions of crimes/perpetrators/victims are powerful and sometimes subjectively skewed. Further, self-representation of powerful legal bodies and their conceptualizations of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in establishing/enforcing law will have lasting impacts on human rights.